Milkweed capers on fresh caught bass...

So I've been pretty busy, in my non-gardening life.  I recently got a new job, and the hoops I've been jumping through has left me precious little time in our garden.  Luckily, my darling hubbie has had more time in the garden...so it isn't being neglected...but I do miss those sweet hours passing by as I weed and inspect all the plants growing.

Weeding gives you a chance to kill  many hours of your day, but it also gives you an up close and personal view of how your plants are doing, how they are growing and if anything edible has sprouted!  It like giving yourself an excuse to just stare at the wonder of gardening.  Boy do I miss that.

On the other hand, my hubbie was wonderful enough to follow my lead when I picked milkweed blossums one day and he pickled them.  (I left open the browser window that showed the link to The 3 Foragers website where we first got the idea)

  http://the3foragers.blogspot.com/2011/06/milkweed-recipe-milkweed-flowerbud.html

Its a pretty simple recipe...in case anyone was wondering.  The 3 Foragers offer up two different pickling recipes.  Ches did the one where you soak the capers in salt brine for 3 days, strain it, then proceed with the recipe.  Check out the above link for the actual recipe. 

I picked these mlkweeds on the side road that takes us to the mini-park in Verona.  I'm pretty sure anyone walking their dog that day thought I was truly nuts.  Its not a very busy road, so I thought it might be a safe location to forage the milkweed blossums.  Its recommend that you don't forage beside roads...due to the emissions from passing cars getting absorbed by the local plant life.  While I agree...I was willing to risk it on this quiet little road.  When I say blossums, I mean when the buds are still little green balls, not the highly identifiable clusters of pink blossums (as shown below).  

The other night, I came home from a first aid course (something I had to do over my weekend) and found my family getting ready for a fishing trip!  They had packed up a car with lifejackets, fishing tackle and snacks.  Both boys were ready to go and my husband was just getting the last few things together.  I changed and we were out the door.  I wished I had of brought my camera, to document the adventure we had that afternoon.  I feel that the story behind the meal is just as important as the meal itself.

However that was not the case.  I didn't bring a camera and of course we had a blast anyway...it just makes for a less interesting blog entry.  

  

Our meal this evening...fresh caught bass, breaded with homemade whole wheat bread brumbs, fresh picked lettuce and spinach greens from the garden, topped with purslane and homemade balsamic vinegrette, and hand cut, baked french fries.  

There isn't anything very complex about this meal...it was simplicity itself.  The bright shining star (for me and hubbie anyway) was the capers we had recently pickled out of milkweed blossums.  It was their first taste drive!  They were lovely!!!  I really have no idea what REAL capers are...in fact I don't care...because all I know is that we can now make all of the capers I would ever want to eat...right in our own neighbourhood.  That's pretty exciting, especially if you like capers and you don't like paying capers prices.    

Some of us preferred to skip the milkweed capers...and just enjoy the love of fresh caught bass...especially when you were the one who caught the bass....see fisherman below...

Anyone else have any good fishing tales (now that bass has opened) or foraging yarns to tell?  

Cornmeal and Jalapeno Bass with French Fries and Beans

I've loved growing things for quite a few years now...but I've discovered that growing a thing is only half of the challenge.  What do you do with that thing after its grown???  Well, you eat it obviously...but its the eating of things that I've always had problems with.  I never liked cooking...I avoided the kitchen like it was a torture chamber.  I suppose that's one of the reasons why I married a chef.  This past summer, I spent a lot of time at home with my 3 yr old son Owen, while my husband desperately worked 3 jobs to keep us paying those bills.  I had plenty of time (and not much money) to consider what was going to be on the table when dinner time came along.

So this is the introduction to the other portion of this blog...what do you do with these things once you've grown them!?!?! 

There will be future posts in which I will discuss my new found obsession with eating locally, the 100 ft challenge and other things of this nature, but mainly we were quite broke and I needed to discover a way to make delicious meals with everything we grew in our garden.  I guess on some level it was a way to become as self-sufficient as possible on the budget we were attempting to live on.

Last night we started the freezer eat-out....well that's what I like to call it....simply put...we freeze most of the things that come out of the garden...and at some point we have to start eating it before it gets freezer burnt!  The garden has been almost completely emptied...so the thought of going to the grocery store now is actually painful for me to think about.  We have subsisted for several months now mainly on garden fair...so I dipped into the freezer for an outstanding meal! 



cornmeal jalapeno bass with french fries and green and yellow beans

Here is the dinner fare for last night...I'll break it down for you:

Cornmeal Jalapeno Bass
Bass caught on Holleford lake (less that 15 min from our house) which equals a very small carbon footprint!
cornmeal bought at the bulk barn
Jalapenos grown in our garden

standard flour/egg wash/cornmeal dip in that order
diced jalapenos (seeds removed because I'm a spicy wussy) added in the cornmeal dish

fried then baked for 10 min each

This is where I get to explain what I started this blog about.  We grow jalapenos every year.  This year we ended up with 15 jalapeno plants that seemed to yield about a basket EACH!  But here comes the problem I face.  No one in our family eats these things...but my husband.  So how do you prepare and serve something that no one eats?  Why do we grow these things?  These are questions I began to ask myself during this past summer's unemployment.  I rose to the challenge of finding something to do with these little fellas.  I scoured cook books and magazines.  I trolled the internet on sites like cook.com and allrecipes.com.  Eventually this fish recipe came from my huband wanting to make cornmeal jalapeno pancakes for the kids and I one weekend.  (i have no idea where he got that recipe...but he's a cook so it could have been from anywhere)

I love the crunch that cornmeal brings to the fish...which we normally fix up with breadcrumbs we make.  Evena  spicy wussy like myself was loving this recipe.  The peppers gave a hint of heat...but not too much.  The flavour of the pepper was able to be tasted without the taste buds getting burnt off.  I will definitely try this recipe again! 

French Fries
We didn't grown potatoes this year, but we do subscribe to a local "good food box" program.  You pay the month earlier and each month you get a blue bin sized box full of fresh, mostly local, often seasonal veggies all for $15.
I hand cut my taters for french fries as I feel like its a more nutritious solution to store bought freezer fries.  Hand cutting fries is a major time consuming endeavour...that's pretty much the only downside...but I'm unemployed with all kinds of time to cut fries...haha...
I toss them in sunflower or canola oil and kosher salt, then bake them at 425 degrees C on a stone.  about 25 min does the trick.

Green and Yellow Beans
We grew three colours of beans this year...green, yellow wax and purple.  We discovered that when you cook the purple beans...they turn green again!  So purple is purely for fresh veggie platters...
When the beans are ready to pick, I usually pick them every few days.  Each day I bring them inside, wash and pat dry.  Then I get a pot of water boiling for the blanching process.  I'm very new to this process...as the first year we froze beans, I didn't bother.  The result was awful tasting...and almost turned my step son off beans altogether (and he'll eat almost anything!)  I now blanche my beans as we pick them...if we aren't goingt to eat them right away.  They freeze wonderfully and I love seeing the bright summer colours on my plate when the weather turns cold.  Like an extra boost of vitamins!  When freezing beans, I fill the large freezer bag about 1/4 full...then press out the air and press the bag flat.  I freeze them flat, then after I have a couple of flat frozen bags, I'll empty them into one bag for storage.  It may seem like a bit of work...but its way easier than using a pick axe to separate the block of beans you'd have if you just filled a bag to the brim with fresh, unfrozen beans.  (we've had to do that too....learning from experience is fun!)

NOT SHOWN:  Home made quick n dirty tartar sauce...
-mayo
-sweet relish
-dill from our garden
-lemon juice
-salt n pepper to taste
-optional:  capers diced

SIDE NOTE:  we served the kids the cornmeal bass...but added the jalapenos for the filets that my husband and I ate.  When my 3 yr old Owen decides he's had enough beans, we always remind him to eat them all up...saying the green ones give him Hulk power and the yellow ones are Wolverine power.  Don't ask me why, but if you give cool names to veggies, your kids will have no problem wolfing them down...